There have been a couple of multi-million pound supplier contracts awarded across the public sector this week.
First up, Sopra Steria was awarded two major contracts, with a combined value of £369 million, by National Savings and Investments (NS&I), the UK’s government-owned savings bank best known for Premium Bonds.
Sopra Steria will manage tens of millions of customer contacts each year, and a savings book of more than £220 billion.
The transformation specialist will manage NS&I’s frontline contact centre to assist customers with digital self-service interactions. Within this, the organisation will provide improved options for those in vulnerable or digitally excluded situations to ensure all customers have appropriate and inclusive access to NS&I services.
Service transition, which begins in spring 2024, will see Sopra Steria responsible for helping deliver vital government schemes through NS&I’s Business-to-Business operation, including Childcare Services, Help to Buy ISAs, Help to Save, the Mortgage Guarantee Scheme, and the Court Funds Office.
“These contract wins solidify our position in the financial services market in the UK and reflect our significant investment in the sector. We’re ideally placed to create an exceptional customer experience for NS&I’s savers, having delivered many similar contracts, at scale, in both the private and public sectors,” said John Neilson, CEO Sopra Steria UK.
“Our skilled and experienced teams have worked hard to create a solution that ensures inclusivity and accessibility for all NS&I’s customers. We’re looking forward to delivering the transformational change NS&I needs.”
“We’ve played a role in our savers’ lives for over 160 years and in that time we’ve evolved as customer expectations have changed and the industry has modernised. So I am delighted that after a competitive process, the awarding of these packages is another important milestone in our journey to becoming the UK’s most trusted savings provider,” added Matthew Smith, NS&I chief operating officer.
“Our transformation programme will significantly improve customers’ experience of NS&I providing more flexibility and choice while also improving our efficiency.”
Sopra Steria will also provide back-office services for NS&I, including managing the end-to-end internal banking service between NS&I and HM Treasury, HM Revenue and Customs, and the Ministry of Justice.
HMCTS Common Platform
Meanwhile, Scrumconnect Consulting has been awarded a two-year digital transformation services contract by His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS).
The £12.75 million contract sees Scrumconnect Consulting become the sole supplier for HMCTS’s ‘Common Platform’, which is the single digital platform for new criminal court cases in England and Wales.
HMCT says its goal is to transform how the criminal justice system uses, manages and shares data.
The rollout of the Common Platform is a central part of HMCTS’s Service Reform Programme to improve courts and tribunals for people who use them and for those working for them. Since August 2023, every Crown and magistrates’ court has had access to the Common Platform, allowing for quicker information sharing between all those involved in criminal justice cases. With the Common Platform, all relevant case materials will be available to stakeholders including the police, judiciary, lawyers and criminal justice agencies in one central online location across all criminal courts. This applies to data from arrest through to trial and for those convicted or on the prison and probation service.
As of October 1, 2023, the Common Platform has accepted more than 500,000 cases onto the system and managed over 860,000 hearings in the Crown and magistrates’ court. Scrumconnect Consulting will be responsible for maintaining the platform and building new automation features to further improve information sharing and data accuracy across the justice system.
“Scrumconnect Consulting is excited to be expanding its relationship with HMCTS, as we continue to be at the forefront of delivering user-centric services across government,” said Praveen Karadiguddi, CEO at Scrumconnect Consulting.
“The Common Platform is a fundamental part of HMCTS’s programme to modernise the criminal court system while it moves away from time consuming paper-based processes and disparate IT systems. We look forward to playing an important role in delivering a robust platform that makes it easy for accurate and up-to-date information to be accessed across the judicial system.”
SCC growing hyperscaler business
Elsewhere too this week, technology solutions and services firm SCC has been named as a supplier on Crown Commercial Service’s Cloud Compute 2 framework.
Cloud Compute 2 [RM6292] provides public sector buyers a route to procure cloud services including Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service solutions. It is the second iteration of Cloud Compute, which launched in 2021 to complement the G-Cloud framework.
SCC was successful in both of the Lots it bid for both Value-added Ancillary Services and Professional Services.
The firm recently secured spots on CCS TePAS 2 [RM6098], Big Data and Analytics agreement [RM6195], and CCS Network Services 3 [RM6116]. SCC has been included on every iteration of the CCS G-Cloud framework since its inception in 2012.
“This is a new framework for SCC and provides another excellent route to market as we look to grow our hyperscale business and extend our well-established reach even further across the public sector,” said Nigel Clark, head of public sector at SCC.
SCC is a provider through several public sector frameworks, including twelve with CCS, and this latest win underlines our commitment to helping organisations access digital solutions that contribute towards the transformation of our public services.”
